Newsies Loose Ends
by SmallPartsLooseEnds
Summary: You know all those bits and pieces that never made sense? Why was Jack's father in jail? What happened to Blink's eye? Where did Spot get his key and cane? What's the story behind Jack's hat and bandana? Why does Sarah make doilies? A collection of one-shots dedicated to all of Newsies' beloved loose ends.
1. Jack's Father

Jack hadn't seen his father in eight years, if you could believe it. He couldn't even remember what he looked like. He could, however, remember, quite vividly, the sight of his brother's blood on his father's hands.

Somehow, Jack was both looking forward to, and dreading, this meeting.

Sarah was coming with him, for moral support. Davey, being the one who arranged the meeting, would see them through security. They didn't speak as they walked. For that matter, they didn't really think much either. Later, when looking back on it, they would remember it-the trip from the lodging house to the penitentiary-as one long, quiet trip with all the bits and pieces blurred together.

Jack didn't know why he'd agreed to see his father. Maybe it was the fact that he'd be out in a few years. Maybe it was the fact that he was, and had been for a long while now, the leader of Manhattan. Maybe it was because he'd lied for so long that he wanted to know what the truth looked like.

The state penitentiary was an enourmous building made out of solid brick that looked like it had stood for a thousand years. There were bars on every window.

"Friendly place," Jack might've mumbled, but he was feeling oddly speechless.

Sarah squeezed his hand. Funnily enough, he hadn't noticed her take it. His mouth felt unusually dry.

He didn't remember the security system. He knew he must've spoken at some point, shown some identification or something, but he couldn't even recall opening the door to the small room, and sitting down. He didn't see Davey leave, and he couldn't remember what Sarah said just before the door opened and an officer admitted a mangy figure.

Jack's father looked like he had wasted away until nothing was left but a corpse. His clothes hung loosely on his skeletal figure, but later Jack couldn't even remember what color they were. Two brown specks glared at him from within a rotting skull. He stood hunched over, as if cowering away from a beating.

Jack didn't remember seeing him move towards the table, but suddenly the door shut and his father's carcass was sitting across from him.

For a long moment, there was nothing to say. An hour might have passed without a word, or it might only have been a few minutes, but it appeared that limitless patience was a Sullivan family trait.

"You look like shit," someone said finally. It took Jack a moment to realize that they were his words.

"Yeah?" The ghost asked in a voice out of Jack's nightmares. "So do you."

Silence fell once again, as both parties had nothing to say.

"I hear you go by a new name, now," the skeleton hissed. "What, was my name not good enough for you?"

Jack didn't stand, or yell, or lunge for his father's throat. He simply said, calmly, furiously, in a voice laced with hatred, "I don't want anything you give me, let alone your name."

The corpse awarded his son with a skeletal grin. "What's your new name, then?"

"Kelly," His son said, suddenly feeling very small before that broad grin. He remembered nights crying himself to sleep with welts all over. "Jack Kelly."

"And who's the dame?" The ghost jerked his head at Sarah. His eyes took on a greedy look. "I haven't seen a doll like this one in years."

Sarah held tighter to Jack's arm. He hadn't realized when she'd latched on to him.

"This is my girl, Sarah Jacobs," Jack said. "Her brother and I ran the strike."

"Yes, I heard about that," That skeletal grin filled his face again as his beady eyes looked Sarah up and down once, twice, again and again. "My son became a newsboy, the scum of the city, consorting with Jews and blacks and Asians, and challenging authority. I'm so proud." His voice hardened. "Didn't I raise you better that that, Frances?!"

Jack felt his temper suddenly snap. He had to keep himself from leaping to his feet and yelling. "You raised me to beg for mercy every time you hit me!" He felt his nails digging into his palms. He wanted to stand, to yell, but he felt frozen in place by fear of what this man used to be. "You raised me to grovel and beg and steal, and pretend that every father treated his son that way!"

What was left of his father never said a word.

"You raised me take the beatings like a man and hide the bleeding so you wouldn't get caught!" Jack's voice suddenly softened. "And you raised me to keep quiet when you did the same thing to Jack, and he couldn't do anything about it."

No one said anything.

Time passed. Maybe it was an hour, or a year, or even ten minutes, but it was so long that Jack was beginning to note a sort of grim satisfaction in his father's eyes.

"I have something to say."

A pair of eyes and a pair of specks swiveled to look at Sarah. She held her head high, in a way that was so unlike her that Jack wondered if some grander, more outgoing girl had switched places with her.

"Mr. Sullivan, I feel sorry for you, and I know Jack does, too. You used to be a monster, but now you're only the shadow of a nightmare. As much as I should hate you for what you did to Jack, I can't. I can only feel pity for such a disgusting ghost of a man. When you get out, though, Jack and I don't ever want to see you again. We don't want to hear from you, we don't want to visit you, and, should we be blessed with children someday, we certainly don't want you around to be their grandfather!"

Jack's eyes widened. Such an outburst was so unlike Sarah that he was suddenly sure he was dreaming.

Jack didn't remember leaving. He didn't remember saying good-bye, and he didn't remember seeing his father's face after Sarah's monologue, short and patchy as it was. He couldn't remember whether his father laughed or yelled, whether he simply sat in silence or screamed threats. He couldn't remember getting into the carriage, or riding home, but he did remember someone shaking him.

"Jack, Jack, wake up!"

Jack groaned, swatting Racetrack's face away. "What's wrong? Jeez, cantcha wake up a guy widout screamin' in 'is face? I was havin' the weirdest dream . . ."

Somberly, Racetrack delivered the news that Jack's father had died last night. He offered Jack a cigarette, which the cowboy accepted. Racetrack studied his leader's face, looking for some sign of an explosion. Somehow, he wasn't surprised when none came. He didn't, however, understand why Jack started laughing.

**Jack's father has always been a really significant loose end for me. I toyed with different ideas of why he'd get thrown in jail, but I eventually settled on a very likely happenstance, which was that he'd killed his other son, Jack. In this way I was able to also create a reason for Jack's pseudonym.**

**This story is kind of unique, as it isn't exactly a story. It's a sort of collection of one-shots or stories that tie up the loose ends in Newsies. By loose ends I mean what-happened-after, what-happened-before, and all the little bits in between. Like, for example, Spot's key and cane, or Blink's eyepatch and the reason behind it.**

**I know for a fact that I will be uploading some more, but be patient. These things take a bit to write. This collection also can end very easily and very quickly, since there isn't a definite storyline, and there are only so many loose ends I can tie up.**

**I hope you enjoyed this, since I really enjoyed writing it!**


	2. Blink's Eye

Many a newsie had been undone by a pretty face. It just so happened that Twitch liked the pretty face to belong to a boy. Had it not been 1896, it might have been accepted. Twitch might have been able to have his string of boyfriends in the open, and while it might have been frowned upon, it would not have been dangerous.

But it _was_ 1896, and Twitch was exactly fourteen. He was at the prime moment in his life when everything was slowly being undone, and nobody seemed to be doing anything about it. Most of the newsboys turn to drugs, alcohol, or girls. Twitch turned to other boys.

Twitch was first introduced into this world by a man called Turner. At some point in time, he might have had a first name. Now he was simply Turner. Turner used to be a Manhattan newsie, before he grew too old, and he so lusted for the old times that he still hung around the lodging house as though he lived there, and he still drank and gambled as though he was seventeen and carefree.

All the newsies knew him. The younger ones were cautioned not to take anything he offered them, and the older ones played poker and dice with him. Twitch was one of those boys stuck uncomfortably between being an older newsie and a younger one, and so he hung around the older ones without really saying anything.

He'd traded a few words with Turner, who seemed nice enough. Turner seemed to like Twitch, and as long as he paid up what he lost at poker, none of the older newsies really cared.

One night Twitch had had too much to drink, and was stumbling around the alley beside the lodging house. It was late, and no one, not even the gangs, were out. If one wanted to be specific, one might label the time around two or three in the morning.

Twitch wasn't a loud, roaring drunk, like some of the other newsboys. He was the kind of drunk that stumbled around, mumbling, looking for a place to pass out. So, naturally, when everyone else was also drunk, nobody missed him.

Turner was a similar kind of drunk, though he was more prone to fits of impulsive actions. Somehow, both Twitch and Turner found themselves in the alley, and the rest is history.

Turner was Twitch's first, which Twitch was not altogether proud of. For the longest time, he could not bring himself to meet Turner's eyes when he passed. Thankfully for him, Turner went west and died of cholera.

Twitch's first boyfriend, however, he acquired while sober. Twitch had run his mind through that night ever since it had happened, and he could not bring himself to spell out what it meant. That's when a boy called Vex arrived.

Vex looked like he belonged in a story about vampires. He was of Scandinavian descent, though a born American, and he was the sort of boy who knew exactly who he was.

Twitch and Vex were happy together, for about two months. That's when Vex got arrested for stealing, and sent to the refuge. In three weeks, he was dead of a combination of starvation and injuries from the other boys.

In the years up until he turned sixteen, Twitch went through boys faster than Racetrack went through cigars. He learned to be secretive, and to hide himself from the other boys, while still appearing as what he defined as normal.

Twitch current boyfriend was the boy he'd been with the longest. His name was Alfred, and he was the son of a priest. Alfred was in a gang that hung around the newsies, but he'd only just joined so he'd never spoken with the newsies before. He'd met Twitch at Tibby's, and they'd been together for eight months. Alfred's father was away all day, so it was usually perfectly safe if Twitch came over during the day. Alfred had no mother, and his older sisters were already married in their own homes, so no one else was home.

Twitch would swear on the Bible, on God, on the newspapers he made his living on, and on the souls of his dear, dead family, that he had found his soul mate.

That is, until Alfred's father caught them together.

Would you like the long story or the short one?

The long one would be that word got out to Alfred's gang, but by the time that it reached them, it was so warped that the gang understood it as rape, with Twitch being the offender. And the way they insulted Twitch, Alfred wasn't about to correct them. As Twitch sold his papers, he was snatched up by a few gang members, and knocked out. When Twitch came to, he was tied up, being as the gang was a tad overdramatic. Without having the mercy to keep him unconscious, the gang leader stabbed Twitch in the eye.

The short story would be that a few weeks later, when the bandages had been peeled off, Twitch bought himself an eye patch and was renamed Kid Blink.

**This one is much shorter than the last, and more simplistic. I tried to word it as a long-term story instead of a few little scenes. I have personally always enjoyed shipping Blink with Mush, and I've always wondered what happened to Blink's eye, so I really enjoyed writing this. Rest assured that I shall be uploading again soon.**

**Also, I am compiling a list of loose ends that I would like to write things for. I have checked **_**Jack's Father**_** and **_**Blink's Eye**_** off the list, and I still have plenty more to go, but I would love to add more to the list. If you have any recommendations, please say so in a review or PM.**

**Until next time, then! **


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